


The Dark Sacred Night

by Arakano



Category: PRISTIN (Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 10:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12792711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arakano/pseuds/Arakano
Summary: It's not the falling that gets you, it's the impact. AU.





	1. Chapter 1

  **Put Up My Thumb and Shut One Eye**

* * *

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.  
_Neil Armstrong_

* * *

“Don’t you touch me with your filthy hands.”

Yaebin holds her gloved hands up, “Ok. I have them where you can see them. Not going to touch you. You, me, touching, nah. They’re not dirty though, I swear. I just washed them.”

The prisoner growls, flips a wave of red hair that had fallen over her face to reveal sharp eyes and teeth bared in a snarl. Yaebin knows she said she was not going to touch her but by the god are her hands tingling and it has just been so long, so long that she has spoken to someone else, she just kind of wants to shake this stranger by the shoulders to know that she is still here, still alive.

But Yaebin is a woman of her word so instead she sits down directly in front of the prisoner, puts her hands together.

“Do you know who I am?”

The prisoner rolls her eyes, “What is this, Twenty Questions? A movie? Whoever wrote this script sucks.”

Yaebin shrugs, “Ok.”

The prisoner eyes her warily, tugs again at the chains that hold her hands apart. They jangle merrily and she snarls again.

Yaebin waits.

It takes them a while but then they see her. They always do.

She watches the prisoner’s eyes trace her, watches her gaze travel up from Yaebin’s boots to the hems of her sleeves, then upwards to her epaulettes and finally as they land on Yaebin’s tie and collar. Yaebin waits.

“You’re a general,” the prisoner says.

Yaebin nods, “Sorta.”

She sees the flicker of recognition, then the look of sheer panic and the shaking of the chains that accompanies them. Yaebin waits for the prisoner to tire or give up. She wonders if this particular prisoner is going to try to actually spit on her. Sometimes they try.

She does not.

“Why,” the prisoner says, “why are you here?”

“In this room, on this ship, or orbiting this planet?”

Yaebin pauses and looks up at the prisoner from where she is seated on the floor, cocks her head to one side.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I haven’t spoken to anyone in three months,” Yaebin says, “don’t mind if I try-”

“Three months,” the voice is low and threatening, “who was it that you-”

“I liked them,” Yaebin says, “I liked her. She was a cool person even if she didn’t want to talk all that much. Really did surprise me with her strength but I mean, there’s really not all that much point to trying to kill me. It’s really not very useful. They’d just find someone else who likes to talk less and drain more and really, where would we be then?”

“You said she,” the prisoner says.

Yaebin nods, “Nayoung was a cool person.”

The chains still.

“N-Nayoung?”

Yaebin nods again.

“Was?”

“Oh,” Yaebin says, “she’s still alive. Past tense in the sense that I have not seen her in a while but I don’t really do the killing thing. You people are far more useful alive. I think they set her to work somewhere else. I don’t know where though, so don’t try asking me. People don’t tell me things because I talk too much. Or that’s what they said five years ago over the comlink.”

“Where is she? What did you do with her?”

Yaebin sighs, “Can you pay attention for a moment? Didn’t you hear what I just said? I don’t know. She’s not dead though. I didn’t kill her, at least. I didn’t drain everything either. I told you, I said liked her. She’s cool so I left her with just enough to know it’s still there but not enough to well, kill me. Then they took her back down out of orbit and I don’t know anything anymore.”

“You.”

Yaebin shrugs, “I know, I know, short little old me. Sue me for wanting to stay alive.”

“Is that why?”

Yaebin stops.

“Is that why you do this?”

“Ah,” says Yaebin, “yes. I’ve heard this one before. Yes. I like staying alive. It’s kind of nice.”

“But you-”

“I have also heard this one before,” Yaebin says, “and I happen to be relatively comfortable here.”

“What about-”

“The people? Man, and here I thought you might be different.”

The prisoner scoffs, “People? Who cares about the people.”

“Ooh,” says Yaebin, “you have my attention. Not that you didn’t already have it, but you certainly have it now. I like this. Keep going.”

“The people fend for themselves just fine, one dictatorship to another, what’s the difference - no, there’s nothing interesting there. It’s not about protecting or helping or anything. Think about the money. There’s a ton of money out there for various jobs and with your skills and talents I can’t imagine you wouldn’t be able to rack up whatever you need to be comfortable again in less than a week, Angel of Death.”

“You know,” Yaebin says, “that would all be very believable if I didn’t know who you were. Also, I really haven’t heard that name in a long time. Didn’t realize people still used it. It’s really not accurate though. I don’t kill people. Also I kind of just go by Rena now so you should really get them to stop using it when you get back down there. That’d be nice.”

The prisoner stops, eyes narrowing, “What do you mean?”

“I’m so bored,” Yaebin says, “so, so, so bored. You have no idea. Watching the news is so incredibly boring if there isn’t anyone to discuss it with. Do you know that I once counted how many buttons there were on every piece of clothing shown on the news headlines? I had no idea people sometimes put buttons on the insides of things. Like why?”

The prisoner, rather wisely, does not interrupt. Yaebin decides she likes her. Well, that is a lie. Yaebin had already decided she liked her when she walked into the room earlier but that is another matter for another time.

“But yes, as I was saying, you should go back and tell them to stop using that nickname.”

“You’re going to let me out,” the prisoner says flatly.

“Mmhm,” Yaebin says, scoots a little closer to the prisoner’s feet, looks up, “man, you’re kinda tall. This is going to be a pain.”

“What?”

“I said,” Yaebin enunciates each word clearly, “You. Are. Kind. Of. Tall. And. This. Is. Going. To. Be. A. Pain.”

“No, I heard that part,” the prisoner says.

Yaebin beams, “Oh you’re just like her. I like you already.”

“Her?”

“Nayoung,” Yaebin says, “have you been paying attention?”

“I-”

“I know it’s confusing, but do try to keep up,” Yaebin says, “I’m going to release you. In a bit. So you can go back down there and tell them to stop using that name.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” the prisoner looks like she wants to laugh at Yaebin, “but are you really serious right now?”

Yaebin runs her gloved hand over the cuff at the prisoner’s right ankle. It snaps open. She looks up. The prisoner looks back down at her.

Yaebin waits to be kicked.

They just look at each other for what must be a solid ten seconds. Yaebin is not kicked. 

Good.

“Well, fuck me,” the prisoner says, “and fuck my inability to keep my mouth shut for my own damn good, but are you actually going to do this?”

Yaebin’s smile grows.

She releases the prisoner’s other ankle and it is wiggled experimentally. Still, Yaebin is not kicked.

“So,” the prisoner says, “you said you know who I am.”

“They send files up,” Yaebin says, “with the food, and the prisoners, of course, so yes, I do know who you are.”

She grins. 

“Electricity, right, Kim Minkyung? Oh, how I’ve been waiting for you ever since Nayoung mentioned your powers.”

\---

Minkyung rubs her wrists.

“That’s it? That’s all? All you wanted me to do was change the TV channel?”

The Angel of Death, no, Rena, shrugs, “Yeah. That one was really boring. At least now I can watch animals.”

“Watch animals,” Minkyung says flatly.

Rena pats the spot next to her on the bed, then turns to the shelf next to her and pulls a towel out, “They won’t be coming for you for a few days, you might as well get comfy for now. You can have the bed for now, but for sleeping there is another one on the other end of the pod that you can have. I like this one.”

She leaves the room, bathrobe and towel in hands, then sticks her head back in, “Oh, and please don’t try to crash this thing. It won’t be pleasant for either of us, trust me. Someone tried. It was not fun at all and you will not believe how hard it is to get stains out without bleach.”

Minkyung sits down on military regulation sheets, watches an old rerun of Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter and waits for the Angel of Death to come back from her shower. Oh, Kyungwon and the others will never hear the end of this.

But Nayoung is alive.

Nayoung is alive. Knowing that Nayoung is alive somewhere on the planet, even if she has not returned to them yet gives her a new surge of hope. Minkyung puts her head in her hands, feels her hair beneath her fingers and the warmth of her own skin, lets herself break down just a little. This might just be possible. Even if Nayoung could not do it.

But now it makes sense why Nayoung could not do it, why Nayoung, the most powerful of them all, could not, and why Minkyung is the only one who can.

Oh Nayoung, beautiful, brilliant Nayoung who knew that Minkyung would be the one to try next.

A hand rests on her shoulder and by reflex she reaches back and throws a rather damp Angel of Death over her shoulder onto the small twin bed.

“Uh,” says the Angel of Death, “hi.”

Oh shit, thinks Minkyung. Now she’s dead.

“Right,” says the Angel of Death, sitting up, wet hair wrapped up in the towel, “Military personnel. Right. I always forget. Sorry I spooked you.”

Minkyung tries to stop her jaw from falling open.

“I told you,” she says, “they really don’t send people up here very often. Oh, has anyone told you you’re beautiful?”

Minkyung fails.

\---

Yaebin knocks on the door, knowing fully well that the inhabitant is still asleep, then slides it upon and marches straight up to the bed, fully dressed in her military uniform, the same outfit they had first met in.

“They’re here for you,” Yaebin says, “You’re going to go back down so I’m going to have to do what they sent you up here to have done.”

She watches the sleep clear instantly from Roa’s eyes.

“Hold out your hands,” Yaebin says.

Minkyung does not move.

“I said,” Yaebin says, “hold out your hands.”

Minkyung gathers the blankets around her.

Yaebin sighs, “You don’t have to make this any harder for yourself. Just hold out your hands and it will be over in a flash, no pun intended.”

Minkyung’s grip tightens on the blankets.

“Like I said,” Yaebin says, “I don’t kill people. Also, don’t you have a movement to get back to or something? Even without your powers, you’ll still be useful.”

A small spark flies across the woolen surface.

“I’ll let you spark,” Yaebin says, “I won’t take it all away. That’s evil. I’m not evil.”

“You’re cruel,” Minkyung says, “to leave just a little, just a smidgen of a reminder of what we used to have, I know now why no one has ever come back. They’ve probably all gone insane.”

Yaebin’s face falls a little, then she shrugs, “So I’ve been told, but I’m not responsible for your mental health. I’m just doing what I was sent here to do.”

“You don’t have to,” Minkyung says, “you don’t. You could just send me back down and no one has to ever know.”

Yaebin shrugs, “If no one ever finds out because you never use it, how is it different from taking it away?”

“I-”

Yaebin smiles, “I told you, I like living.”

“This isn’t living,” Minkyung says, gestures to the small pod in orbit around Earth, sealed away from the rest of the world, away from the rest of human civilisation, connected by a single comlink that now only plays animal documentaries, and will likely only play animal documentaries forever, “this isn’t living.”

Yaebin shrugs but Minkyung watches the smaller person flinch.

“Hold out your hands,” Yaebin says more firmly, “don’t make me do it from a distance. We both won’t like it.”

“I’m your last chance,” Minkyung says, “aren’t I, Yaebin-ah?”

Yaebin freezes.

“Who-”

“You’re not the only one who has done their research,” Minkyung shrugs, “and you know I can. You’ve known ever since I changed the channel, haven’t you?”

Yaebin swallows. 

Minkyung watches the lump in her throat, then drags her eyes back up, a soft smile on her face. 

“I’ll hold out my hands, Kang Yaebin, but only if you’ll take them and come back down to Earth with me.”


	2. The Softer It Falls

Of course it would be in the middle of the desert. 

She can feel the heat rising from the ground, feel the rays of the sun on her back, feel the lack of the heavy presence she is so used to in the air. Her fingers twitch and close over each other, a shudder runs down her spine. She feels the water leave her body with every breath, feels it disappear in the most disconcerting of fashions.

Jieqiong takes in a deep breath and tugs her shawl closer around her face.

She should have searched here first. She really should have, should have known that of course the universe would have landed Nayoung here, here in the one shuttle port in the middle of the desert, far away from any bodies of water, not that it matters to Nayoung who weaves air with her fingers.

Wove, the soft voice in the back of her head reminds her, wove. Past tense. Nayoung is past tense. You know it. It has been months.

No.

No matter what she said to Eunwoo, to Kyungwon, and to Yewon before she left, Jieqiong does not believe that Nayoung is dead.

Angel of Death, Junghyun had said, it’s a one way trip and no one ever comes back down.

\---

Jieqiong remembers.

She remembers the day Nayoung did not come back, remembers the evening they sat on the cold concrete floor, fingers digging into the dust in the dark, waiting for signal to leave that never came, remembers the smell in the air, the lingering vapor where there had undoubtedly been a person.

She remembers being dragged away by Minkyung and now Minkyung is out on a long mission of her own and does not know that Jieqiong is here. Maybe she should have said goodbye.

(Minkyung would probably have just knocked her straight out and have Yewon tie her down until this stupid idea was gone from her head, but Jieqiong does not want to believe that Nayoung is dead, cannot believe that Nayoung is dead.)

She has to see it for herself.

Has to-

Her grey contacts itch, already slowly drying in this air - Jieqiong really should have stolen a few more from Eunwoo before she had left - but she just blinks them moist again.

Europe had been a no-go. She had not even bothered. They never take downward deliveries, and no one, no one ever leaves, everyone knows that.

The Asian landing pad, well, money always buys things there but the three weeks she spent in that one pub were enough to get her in and it turns out that way too much money is needed to buy what they would have needed to buy.

Which is why she is here in the middle of the Sahara in winter, shawl around her head, robes hiding her figure, making her way through a market where what little bit of her skin that peeks out between her eyes marks her as a stranger.

Jieqiong has never before wished she were a guy, but she might start wishing right about now as she feels the eyes rake over her form, wrapped in layers of loose robes.

Another shudder runs down her spine.

This is a terrible idea, Sungyeon would say, but Sungyeon is far away and does not know that she is here.

They all think she is in China because she told them she was going home.

Jieqiong has not lied.

\---

She has spent half an hour listening to this tea merchant try to get her to do a deal with him where she sends tea from her ancestor’s gardens to this far-flung god-forsaken bit of the desert in the middle of nowhere. Except, of course, her ancestors never did have gardens and spent most of their time making money off of poor unsuspecting souls. Or something like that. Jieqiong does not know. Her parents might have told her at one point but she does not remember.

The market itself is nothing particularly impressive nor interesting. Perhaps she has made a mistake in coming here where she sticks out like a sore thumb. Perhaps the warning signals have been sounded.

Somehow she doubts it. She doubts the place has warning signals. If they did, she would have likely already been taken on the bus and not be standing here.

Perhaps this is just not the right place then?

She feels someone at her back, sees the look on the merchant’s face, turns slowly, deliberately.

A tall figure steps up to her, growls, “What brings you here?”

Jieqiong takes in the lean muscles, the dusty, ragged hems, feels her heart pound in her chest. Hope is a dastardly thing.

“I’m looking for a job.”

The man scoffs, “You must either be crazy or stupid, girl. Go home. This isn’t a place for pretty little things like you.”

Jieqiong lets the shawl fall a little from her face, bares her teeth in a grin, “I heard they’re looking for fresh blood.”

_ Bingo. _

\---

Nayoung wakes up just before dawn as the air starts to slowly stir. She used to be so attuned to the slightest of movements, now it is but a dull thrum that she can barely grasp and it has been months but people still startle her.

People had never been able to startle her.

She tugs on her overalls, stands at attention for the morning count, watches as the guard makes another mark on her chart.

The researchers come by sometimes, Nayoung can hear them because the doors to the other cells open and she can  _ hear _ them then. Not all of them, not all of them are in pain, but she can hear the ones who are.

She does not eat very much nor drink very much, consumes the bare minimum, does not know exactly what it is that the others are going through, only has the deepest, most unsettling feeling of dread that she is somehow, somehow next.

She reads that in the flicking of their gazes, in the furrows of their brows, in the confusion they have when they look at her chart.

Something should have happened, she knows. She knows they think something should have happened but nothing has happened yet.

Nothing that she can tell, at least. She flexes her fingers, feels the soft breeze that her movements make. That has not changed.

It has been three months and two days.

The guard puts the clipboard down with a clunk, motions at her and Nayoung retreats to the back of the cell.

Nayoung sits, sits, and thinks.

Outside, ice grows on the surface of the Baltic Sea.

\---

Jieqiong feels the urge to throw up.

She knew it was bad, they all knew. They were, are, fighting for a reason, but she had not thought it was quite this bad.

How naive, she thinks.

Frantic eyes peer back at her from inside the doors, faces, teeth press against the glass and she can feel them in the air, can feel the desperation, the fear, the despair as it comes off of their breath and fades into nothingness.

_ Help us,  _ she feels it on her skin _ , help us, help us, help us. _

Jieqiong slides trays into the room through the gap that opens, feels the wash of dampness as it comes out towards her and grits her teeth and bites it all down because the pitter pat of her supervisor’s boots come down the hallway.

“So,” he leers, “you’re the new girl.”

Jieqiong’s back straightens even further, she keeps her eyes straight, does not meet his eyes. The electric lights buzz, she hears moans of pain in the distance, feels the sheer stillness of the air. Nayoung would hate a place like this, Nayoung would-

He reaches out a hand, brushes her hair to one side and her jaw tightens but she does not move.

Jieqiong needs information and this man has information.

Later that night, she does throw up, then takes a knife to her hair in the shower, lets the loose waves fall to the floor, picks them up later and watches them flush down the toilet.

The dust does not wash off.

\---

Nothing, she finds.

Nothing. They do nothing to these people, to these once-power users. Nothing at all in this facility besides have them brought here, lock them up and watch them die.

She does not know why they die.

The supervisor does not know why they die.

The guards do not know why they die.

The researchers do not know why they die.

But they die.

Four months and the hardiest is dead, here in the desert. They pay the village boys to dig shallow graves and throw their bones in.

Jieqiong stops eating the food provided in the cafeteria when she sees the same contents being served to the inmates, still drinks the water because it has never betrayed her, but she makes her meals herself, keeps to herself away from the other guards who whisper.

She hears their whispers, knows their plans, keeps to herself, locks and barricades the door at night.

Two more days. Two more days and she will know.

The prison records say nothing but the prison records are terrible at best and unintelligible at their worst, but the whispers on the streets, the town boys enamored with her exotic beauty who answer all her questions, who show her the way to the graves they dig for meals, the town boys have not seen Nayoung.

Two more days and she will have done a full round of the entire facility, two more days and she will know for sure that Nayoung is not here, that this is a dead end.

There is pounding on the door to her room - she counts five bodies and does not open the door.

Jieqiong spends the night in the furthest corner of the room, a gun in her hand.

Two more days.

\---

The supervisor calls her into his office in the morning.

He shuts the door behind them, she counts three bodies. Three would be a challenge, but she can do three. Theoretically, that is.

“I’ve never seen someone like you before,” he says, “you’re beautiful.”

Jieqiong stills, wills her hands to not move as he takes a step closer, “Never, sir?”

He shakes his head, “I’ve never seen anyone of your kind before. I’d heard they were all beautiful, but I did not know just how beautiful you would be.”

“My… kind.”

“Your skin,” he drags fingers over her wrist and she does her very best to not recoil away, “so light, so pale, so soft. I’ve never been this close to one of you.”

Jieqiong decides then and there that she does not need two more days, discovers that fifty, not three, is well within her powers, burns the look of dying gratitude into her mind, razes the place to the ground as best one person can, conjures up her own memories of soft, warm brown eyes and takes the next flight out.

She throws up again in the bathroom of the airplane, lets the kind air stewardess rub comforting circles on her back though nothing comforts her.

Two weeks in the desert, two weeks in that godforsaken place, two weeks of sleepless nights, two weeks of listening to the screams that she finally silenced with her own two hands, two weeks closer to four months and still, still she has not found anything.

Jieqiong would throw up once more but there is nothing left to throw up.

The European facility, the soft treacherous voice whispers in her head, you could give it a shot. There is always a first for everything.

Jieqiong rather thinks that she is wholly unsuited to be the first person to make it out of a maximum security facility but she books a flight to Europe anyway because at this point she has nothing to lose.

\---

Nayoung wakes up one morning to a sharp pain in the side of her left hand. She blinks blearily, sits up, realizes with a start that her hand just hurts but nothing is visible. No bruises, nothing.

She stares at it, gently prods the flesh with her fingers, feels the sensations on her skin but the pain just throbs, fades away and then returns. The morning alarm goes, startles her. How-

She throws on her overalls anyway, stands at attention, resists the urge to squeeze her hands.

“9512,” the guard says, “Is there anything you would like to report?”

Nayoung’s left thumb twitches.

“No, sir.”

The lake starts icing over.

\---

It has been a week and now her entire left arm burns with every movement. Nayoung knows the usual guard suspects something but he has not yet called the researchers over, only makes the same note on his clipboard.

She can barely feel the stirring of the air this morning, has been noticing how much harder it has been to concentrate on the lightest trace of air when her arm feels like a thousand tiny needles are constantly trying to break out of her skin.

The usual alarm goes, startles her and she tugs on her overalls, shuffles to the front, keeps her hands behind her back.

Then she meets the new guard's eyes and they both freeze.


	3. When I Wake

“You don't have a plan.”

“I have half a plan.”

“But you've never tried it out to this extent.”

“No,” Minkyung says, gathering cloth in her hands. Surely this bed sheet will come in useful somehow later, “I don't think I've ever tried frying an entire landing pad's worth of people and equipment at one go. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever tried frying people. That’s just not a thing I do, you know.”

“Well,” Yaebin says, “First time for everything I suppose. And that’s not what your file says about you.” 

Minkyung pauses, “What _does_ my file say about me?”

“Dangerous,” Yaebin says, “destructive. Something about cars and computers. Has a blurry photo of you as a high school student. You do look almost exactly the same.”

Minkyung nods.

Yaebin shrugs, “At least you haven’t killed anyone. That’s probably why it took them this long to find you - they weren’t actively hunting for you when they have enough of what they’re looking for right now.”

“Looking for?”

Yaebin’s eyes narrow, “You don’t think you actually got sent up here for no reason, do you? Do you know how expensive a launch like this is?”

Minkyung pauses.

“Well,” Yaebin says, “you’re lucky you got me. I’m sure the others aren’t quite as nice.”

“Others,” Minkyung says quietly, “there are others?”

Yaebin shrugs, “I don’t know for sure but there must be. It takes a while for the power to fade and before it does I can’t do anything so there must be more if they want to do anything.”

Minkyung hums, low, reaches around Yaebin for the toothbrush behind her, then stops in her tracks.

“What do you mean by power fading?”

Yaebin grins, a small wall of wind hits Minkyung’s face and she freezes.

“What did you just do?”

She reaches out to to grab Yaebin's hands, stops short of actually contacting them, “Is-” 

Yaebin’s grin widens, “Yup! It's actually awfully useful. I've been using it to move things from a distance.”

“Wha-How-”

“What's the fun in me-” 

“How do you have Nayoung's power,” Minkyung hisses.

Yaebin takes a step back, “Ok, ok. Relax. I told you, that's what I do. I just drain some of it and it has to go somewhere, right, so I keep it. Can't keep too much or I'd explode. That's not fun.”

“Explode,” says Minkyung, “like literally explode?” 

Yaebin shrugs, “Never actually tried. It just starts hurting after a while like it wants to break out, so I stop. When I said I left her a little, it's not that I didn't want to take it, I couldn't. Already filled little old me up so I just put a lid on it and voila, everyone is happy, I get to live another day.”

Minkyung opens her mouth.

“No height jokes.”

Minkyung closes her mouth. She turns away.

Yaebin feels a chill run down her spine but all Minkyung does is fold more clothes into a bag before she straightens up, turns back.

“Well, if I think of you as mini-Nayoung then there is a lot more we can do.”

Yaebin frowns, “I thought I said no height jokes.”

* * *

“9512,” she hears the words, “Do you have anything to report?”

Nayoung’s forearm throbs but for a moment the air goes dry around them, then stills.

Jieqiong's hair. 

What happened to Jieqiong’s hair? She sees only the odd strand peeking out from beneath the regulation cap, nothing of the soft waves that she remembers combing in the mornings.

Jieqiong loved her hair, she knows. 

Nayoung's right hand twitches, itches to brush the stray strands down, to run her fingers through whatever is left, to say that whatever happened, that it is now alright.

A soft, soft breeze, all she can manage, tickles Jieqiong’s face.

Jieqiong flinches.

Nayoung’s heart clenches.

“I said,” Jieqiong’s voice trembles, “9512, do you have anything to report?” 

Behind, her sink drips once, twice, then a third time.

“No, sir,” says Nayoung as now her left shoulder burns and the bars come back into focus between them.

Jieqiong holds her gaze for another second before her eyes flick down and away. She marks something down on the clipboard and Nayoung follows the sounds of her boots down the corridor, wishes, wishes, wishes, she could just reach out, wishes she could follow but her power is no longer with her and there is nothing she can do but sit and wait.

The stillness of the air mocks her.

* * *

“So the plan is we let it land, they come for you and then we run?”

Minkyung sighs, “We fake the security camera footage, let it land, pray they don't blow it up because the lander is more expensive than the two of us put together, get out, pray they don’t shoot either of us on sight, I find a car, and we get the fuck out of here. Then we go on the run for real for the rest of our lives. Or something.”

“Or something?” Yaebin moves and Minkyung debates slapping her because this is a seat for one and the smaller girl is not heavy but her elbows and butt are pointy.

“Stop fucking moving,” she snaps, “and do you have a better plan?”

“Nope,” Yaebin says from awfully close to her ear, “but do I really have to sit on you the entire way down?”

“Considering there is no other place to sit and I’d rather you didn’t bust your head open on the ceiling when we finally land, no,” Minkyung hisses, “and honestly I’d much rather you sat further away because your elbows have got to be the worst.”

Yaebin laughs but stops squirming.

Minkyung takes this moment to check on the looping of the footage. It is not the best but it will have to do.Then she buckles them both into the seat and briefly reflects on the last week of her life.

One, someone gives her up. 

Two, she wakes up in space.

Three, she meets this… person.

Four, she is about to go on the run for a very long time if the landing pod is not blown up.

Minkyung sighs.

She does not know exactly who gave her up but Minkyung has her suspicions. Normal folk do not understand the need for secrecy, do not understand that even the slightest insinuation is enough to send the hounds after them, that there are the angry and then there are just the hungry who feed their mouths with blood money.

She does not know who found her, does not know what they thought they were going to do, then the pod rotates.

Earth stretches out beneath her, at once unfathomably large and at once so small she can see it from end to end. She has never seen it before from this perspective, where the normal world is just right there, so near yet so far, almost as if a thin sheen of glass divides them, where the world just turns on its axis as usual while they run and they run.

Minkyung sometimes wonders if this is a dream.

They fall.

* * *

Every sound of movement has Nayoung turning to face the corridor now. She knows not to expect anything, logically it would be foolish for her to be visited, but seeing a familiar face, seeing this particular familiar face… 

One of the researchers walks past her cell, then pauses.

She meets his eyes briefly but he breaks it first and keeps walking on.

Nayoung returns to her mattress, squeezes her left palm with her right hand to distract from the pain that has now grown. It seems strange that something that hurts so much would leave no signs, nothing visible. She can still move and use those digits but the pain returns the moment she is no longer distracted.

It is ironic that her investigations had led her to the exact place she had heard only the briefest rumors about but she knows now why there had only been whispers. She has pieced together enough to know that she is in here because of the power she used to have, to know that she is being observed, but not enough to know why, what for, and how long.

“9512,” she practically jumps at the sound, “the supervisor wishes to speak with you.”

Nayoung stands, makes her way forward.

“Your hands,” Jieqiong says.

Nayoung holds them out through the bars. Gentle fingers click the handcuffs close around her wrist, the motion sending pain shooting straight up her left arm. She flinches. Jieqiong pauses, hands floating above hers.

“Your right foot,” Jieqiong says, kneels down to lock one cuff around her ankle. 

The uniform is just slightly too big, she can see the spots where Jieqiong has tried to tuck and fold it to better fit her, can see the small gap between Jieqiong’s sock and the heel tab, the way the shoulders are just that slightly bit too wide.

Nayoung feels Jieqiong’s fingers linger, feels them press reassurance into her skin, wants to rest her hand on Jieqiong’s head but she does not.

* * *

Lit by stars, the lake is dark and beautiful even as the cold wind whips her nose a bright pink. Jieqiong savors the bite of the air as it sinks into her lungs. It should have surprised her how easy it was to get a job at the prison even without a proper work permit but she supposes a pretty face, and the fact that this is likely an illegal institution, does get her far in life.

Part of her wonders if this is just a dream, if she is just imagining this, if her mind is just painting a picture that Nayoung is still alive, that they spoke.

Given the circumstances, she would not put it past herself to be delusional.

Things had changed so quickly in the last two years.

They had been nothing more than whisperings in the underground, urban legends at best, bedtime stories at worst then some fool had to go ahead and kill a bunch of people with their power.

Jieqiong remembers the day her roommate kicked her out of the room, well, remembers her stuff in a box on the front door and a text saying they would not tell anyone but that they could not live together anymore.

Her mother had called to ask her to go home but then the Chinese Registry killings started and her father mailed her a fake passport and then stopped calling. Her last text from her younger brother asked her to buy him a present when she next visited for the Lunar New Year.

Jieqiong wishes she kept the phone and the voicemails.

The door opens behind her and Jieqiong reaches for her baton on instinct then breathes a small sigh of relief when the other guard just pulls out a cigarette pack.

She shakes her head when he offers one to her.

“They’re monsters,” says the guard, “don’t feel bad for them.”

Jieqiong says nothing, lets him assume she is just disturbed from her first week on the job.

He shrugs, “You’re probably just here for a job too but they’re not human. It’s not human, it’s not normal to have powers like that. They’re here because they abused them and so they can’t be trusted.”

Jieqiong has heard this argument before, that powers are a privilege not a right, that abuse of them makes people even more dangerous, that humans should not have them, that it is not right and fair.

Fear has a funny, funny way of rearing its head.

“There are many who cannot be trusted,” Jieqiong says.

“You’ll see,” he says, “you’re new here. You’ll see. They’re all not safe, all crazy with their screaming and crying.” 

He flicks the lighter, the flame dances in the reflection of his glasses, the wind picks up and Jieqiong can feel the ice forming on the surface of the lake.

“I can’t believe we just let them out.”

Jieqiong freezes.

“W-What?”

“It’s winter soon,” he says, shakes his head, flicks cigarette ash to the floor and blows smoke out where they can both see, “and it’s not right either but you’ll see.”

Jieqiong grips the railing so tightly her leather gloves squeak and she can feel the cold seep through to her fingertips.

“What do you mean let them out?”

“It’s a bunch of work to file death reports,” he shrugs, “so they just kind of let a bunch out, those who are almost dead anyway, and let them do whatever they want. I think it’s dangerous myself, but they’re all powerless and no one’s been hurt by them so I guess it works.”

The cigarette burns to a stub and he drops it, stomps it into the ground.

“They don’t get far.”

* * *

“Uhm,” Yaebin says, “Can’t say I was expecting this.”

Snow softly falls from the sky, cold air whips into the now open door of the landing pod.

A bird flies overhead as silence greets them.


End file.
